Pregnant woman narrowly escapes Oakland shooting

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By ABC7

OAKLAND, Calif.

"I thought that it was fireworks. I didn't think that they were actually shooting. I thought it was a joke," said the woman.

Around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, windows were shattered up and down the block and homes riddled with large caliber bullets. Several residents we spoke to said they were extremely surprised no one got shot, but they weren't surprised this happened. The shooting happened in a tough part of Oakland and this is what life is like there.

"That was an AK. I know. I can distinguish. I'm a Marine. I know," said Iraq War Vet Tony Goodwin.

Goodwin says he returned from Iraq three weeks ago suffering from severe post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. The sound of machine gun fire went off right next to his apartment and reopened some deep mental wounds.

"Immediately when I woke up, I went to grab a weapon because I thought we were being attacked. It's scary," said Goodwin.

Police say a man, with a white shirt pulled over his face, stood at the corner of East 16th Street and Seminary Avenue and unloaded at least 38 rounds.

"I looked up and I just started seeing stuff flying and I told my daughters to 'get down, get down,'" said the woman.

Six bullets pierced the pregnant woman's parked car that with her three young daughters inside. She felt one bullet whiz past her face as windshield glass shatter over her body. Then she turned to see if her children were still alive.

"It was terrifying. It felt like I was getting ready to lose everything that I worked so hard for," said the woman.

Miraculously, her daughters, ages 10, 4, and 2 years old, were unscathed. A bullet in the radiator of the struggling family's only car will turn their lives upside down.

"Without a vehicle, how am I going to get my kids to school?" said the woman.

"We think that that there was a group of other young males standing behind her that was the target," said Oakland Police Lt. Mike Poirier.

Homes all the way down the block were shot up. One bullet went through Belinda McLaughlin's bedroom wall.

Wang: And what did you find in your closet?McLaughlin: A hole, and a bullet hole through my blouse.

This shooting is preventing the pregnant woman from volunteering at her children's school and it is forcing her to lock them up in her house at all times.